On Futurology

If history studies our past and social sciences study our present, what is the study of our future? Future(s) Studies (colloquially called "future(s)" by many of the field's practitioners) is an interdisciplinary field that seeks to hypothesize the possible, probable, preferable, or alternative future(s).

One of the fundamental assumptions in future(s) studies is that the future is plural rather than singular, that is, that it consists of alternative future(s) of varying degrees of likelihood but that it is impossible in principle to say with certainty which one will occur.

I'm a bit curious, are there any other left leaning transhumanists here? It seems like the singularitan and the transhumanist movements are mostly comprised of libertarians. It would be nice to see more diversity of opinion, especially those from the radical left.

I'm definitely on the radical left. Somewhere in between mutualism and traditional socialism: I want an economy composed solely of worker cooperatives, with a strong enough safety net that choosing not to work isn't going to condemn you to an early death, and nationalization of key industries. As for government, direct democracy wherever it's practical, and on larger scales either a parliamentary legislature or direct election of a single executive, recallable at will.

If by communist you mean "no central oversight/control" then I would be against it.

I don't think our evolved brains are appropriate for unfettered society, and I doubt they ever will be without fundamental behavioural hacks.

We are just too good at tribe/hierarchy forming and short-term gain thinking.

If by communist you mean "the minimum intervention required to maximise harmony in society with the goal of equality" then I am all for it. But I think the minimum intervention is a hell of a lot while we are running factory-default wetware.

Well like everything else there are different types, and although, like you I do like some of the parts of it and think it would be great in theory I don't think we can ever really achieve either of these types.

Haha, holy shit, are you kidding? This sub is full of left-leaning transhumanists. Honestly I think right-leaning opinions tend to get buried, and definitely transhumanism is seen as the norm around these parts.

If you want evidence, look at the huge support that Universal Guaranteed Income receives on this subreddit. That is most definitely not a libertarian point of view.

Then when someone asks "how do you pay for it" the answer is almost invariably "well, we currently spend x dollars on medicare, food, education etc" like you can just take out one and plug in the other (and UBI is still massively underfunded even if you deleted all of that).

I have certainly seen the taxation thing in plenty of conversations about UBI, but less frequently.

I consider myself on board with resource-based, open-sourced economies and thereby governments. To most 3rd parties, this looks a lot like democratic socialism, which it is, just post-mechanization of labor. So yes, I am very left leaning (though I realize this is my first post in this subreddit, so I'm not sure if I can be considered as "here").

I'm neither left, right, or libertarian. I would like to see a future where a married gay couple can pick up a gun from a drive through and go to the national parks rifle range to try it out, knowing the robot drones overhead will make sure they don't point it at other people, because there are a LOT of people whose hobby is watching the video feed from those drones, and if they get a flag from the AI that the couple are acting aggressive, hundreds of people will assess the situation and ping the local police.

I'm often confused by what people mean when they refer to left and right...
Where I come left was socialist or communist, while right was capitalist.
But either of those things could be placed on a top-bottom scale of totalitarianism (or fascism) to anarchism (or libertarianism). So you could have a anarcho-capitalist or anarcho-socialist. Which would mean libertarians could be socialist or capitalist (or anywhere in between). Most people who label themselves libertarian seem to me to be more in the capitalist spectrum but not all.

As for your question though, I'm fairly left leaning myself. I like the idea of people cooperating rather than competing

That is not really fair to the questioner though, it is an assumption that they are asking you to pick a side rather than asking if you tend to favour ideals of personal liberty or socialised equality?

Both positions have rational arguments in favour and against.

A good rationalist replies to the stronger form of their conversant's question (the steelman) rather than the weakest form (the strawman).

One of the biggest reasons I don't identify with either group is that the worst of both compete with each other, and in politics it means that all either side cares about is victory rather than actual realistic policy.

Unfortunately again, the worst of either "side" are also the most passionate, meaning that they'll actually vote, rather than be apathetic.

I will say that I lean more in favor of libertarianism, however. Freedom in body and mind and all that.

^ I'm in this boat. Although in reality I'm very left leaning, bordering on Socialism, but that's only because I believe as we continue to outsource our labour to machines and computers we shouldn't have to work as much.